Archive for February, 2016|Monthly archive page

A nine-hour-long Turkish cabinet meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Feb. 22 focused on foreign policy, with the future of Ankara’s bilateral relations Israel and Egypt as well as its position regarding the Syrian conflict reviewed in a bid to update its roadmap on these thorny issues

Turkey will continue to up the ante if attacks are conducted against it, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, slamming U.S. State Department Spokesperson Mark Toner for warning Turkey to halt its shelling of PYD targets in northern Syria

As suicide bombings rock Ankara, it’s clear Turkey is being dragged down by multiple crises. Its friends in the west must interveneMurderous suicide bombings. A deadly upsurge of ethno-sectarian violence spilling over from Syria. A country whose friendship with the US and EU is increasingly fragile, and is now at daggers drawn with a historic enemy, Russia.

Turkey’s government will not send the country on an unpredictable adventure amid the continued shelling of Democratic Union Party (PYD) positions in northern Syria, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said Feb. 16

Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu speaks after Turkey’s military hit Kurdish militia targets around the northwestern Syrian town of Azaz on Saturday. He orders the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to immediately evacuate the Minnigh airbase, amid suggestions that Ankara could take military action inside Syria. The shelling came just days after the US and Russia agreed on a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria within a week

Turkey’s government is trying to negotiate with the EU, using refugees as bargaining chips. This hardly brings the crisis closer to a resolutionIn September 2015, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council,alarmingly prophesied: “We are talking about millions of potential refugees trying to reach Europe, not thousands.” In a short space of time his worries were confirmed. Today, Europe’s best bet against the mounting crisis seems to be to deploy the new regime in Turkey, the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), with its mutating mixture of extreme nationalism, conservative religion, and militarisation. A harsh crackdown on refugees within Turkey began in October and has continued unabated. As one lawyer put it, Europe has “outsourced its border security to Turkey”.

Ankara has protested a statement by Washington classifying Turkey along with the “terrorist organization” Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria, while also warning the Syrian Kurdish militia of a “severe response” if they advance toward Azaz

The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) on Feb. 14 rejected Turkish demands to withdraw from positions near the border, and warned that Syrians would resist any Turkish intervention in the country

The Turkish army shelled positions held by Kurdish-backed militia in northern Syria for a second day on Feb. 14, killing two militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group has said

The Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces have taken control of around 70 percent of Tal Rifaat, a town between Aleppo city and Azaz near the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights conflict monitor said on Feb. 15

Saudi military jets have arrived at Turkey’s İncirlik air base in the southern province of Adana to carry out missions against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a Saudi military spokesman said late on Feb. 13

Chairperson of the Upper House committee for Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation Kosachev has said in case Turkey launches ground operation into Syria, a comprehensive war involving Russia and Iran might break out.

ONE ON ONE – In Turkey, truth is underrated as it is not the primary thing that voters expect from political actors and there is already an acceptance that politicians lie, according to Ferdi Ferhat Özsoy, the co-founder of online fact-checking website ‘Share of Truth,’ which fact-checks the statements of Turkish politicians

Locals from the southeastern town of Nusaybin have started to flee their homes after Turkey’s interior minister signaled last week that operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) would expand to the town

Verifying your sources is key to any online investigation. When you find some compelling footage or images, getting to the “who” of where they came from is essential, and First Draft’s VisualVerification Guides give a great overview of things to consider when getting to the source:

The ideal scenario, of course, is to be able to speak directly to a source, if possible and appropriate, on the phone or in person. Even then, mistakes can still happen, especially when a source is pretending to be something or someone they’re not. Often these people are just hoaxers, but there’s a growing trend of accounts acting as sockpuppets: fake online identities set up to push or derail certain political or social agendas….

I will sound like a native of some isolated tribe where death is celebrated — and I might well be accused of dancing on print’s grave — but I think it is wonderful news that London’s Independent is turning off its presses … yet living on.

The critically acclaimed War Is Beautiful: The New York Times Pictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict examines the ways in which the newspaper happily propagated the Bush Administration’s lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that resulted in a senseless war that hurt millions of people and immensely enriched Halliburton, Blackwater, the Carlyle Group and other companies with close ties to the Bush and the Cheney families.

ESPN is at a crossroads. Its business model, which has long been dependent on cable subscription fees, is becoming tenuous as more people cut the cord. ESPN president John Skipper said last week that the network is in discussions to offer broadcast options on additional streaming services.

Chances are good you haven’t been following the day-to-day workings of the House Transportation Committee. But something happened there recently that should have journalists and journalism educators paying attention.

Attached to a Federal Aviation Administration budget reauthorization bill is a little provision that does away with the FAA’s regulation of small drones — clearing the way for journalists, journalism educators, and many others to use flying cameras with fewer rules.

Reddit users are feeling the Bern: That’s one finding from a Pew report, released Thursday, that looks at the role of Reddit as both a news source in general and a destination for information about the 2016 presidential election in particular.

The report found that seven percent of U.S. adults use Reddit. Of those:

[The] user base…is more likely to be young, male and liberal than the general public. 78 percent of Reddit users say they get news there. What’s more, 45 percent of Reddit users learn about the 2016 presidential campaign in a given week from the site. This is on par with the portion of Facebook (52 percent) and Twitter users (43 percent) who get news and information about the election on those platforms and outpaces most other social networking sites asked about.

The release of two prominent Turkish journalists, who had been arrested and detained for months over a story on state-owned trucks allegedly carrying weapons to Syria, has been met with praise by the international community

While Turkey is reducing its commitment to democratization and heading in a very autocratic direction under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ‘s rule, experts raise their concerns and disappointments about the Justice and Development Party

Can Dündar released from Silivri Prison has noted; “This profession has paid the price with lives for the sake of publishing these news. Ours is nothing compared to that. We could stand upright thanks to you”.

Family members, friends, MPs, and other prominent figures greeted daily Cumhuriyet journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül upon their release from Silivri Prison near Istanbul late on Feb. 25, after Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that their rights had been violated.

The Turkish president’s office has noted that the release of daily Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dündar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül does not mark the end of the judicial process, adding that it is “closely following” the case

Erdem Gül and Can Dündar charged with revealing state secrets for report alleging Erdoğan government tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria

Turkey’s constitutional court on Thursday ruled that the rights of two Turkish journalists charged with revealing state secrets in a hugely controversial case had been violated, leading to their release after three months in jail.

Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar and the daily’s Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gül, were released early on Feb. 26 following 92 days in prison on terrorism charges, hours after the country’s top court’s ruled their arrest had violated their rights

A draft law on the protection of personal data fails to outline the establishment of an independent oversight body that would guard such data as required by the EU acquis, an official from the bloc has said

Russia has noted that the suggestions made as alternatives to the truce agreement and to a peaceful solution of the crisis in Syria were unacceptable. The US on the other hand has noted that they respected Turkey’s concerns regarding PKK-YPG connection.